


lightning matches to swallow the flame

by noctiphany



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dissociation, Extremely Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Not Happy, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 20:25:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noctiphany/pseuds/noctiphany
Summary: Love is a war you fight every day and if you’re very, very lucky, it kills you.





	lightning matches to swallow the flame

**Author's Note:**

> This is your turn back here message. If you choose not to, at least heed the warnings and tags. (If there is a tag that isn't in there, please let me know and I'll add it.) I mean it. This isn't my usual ~uwu problematic.~ This is dark and bad and...something I needed to get out. It's not remotely happy. It's ugly. If you're triggered by rape elements please take care of yourself and don't read this. 
> 
> If you need someone to talk to about sexual assault you can call 800.656.HOPE (4673). It will route you to a local sexual assault service provider in your area or you can try the online chat here: https://ohl.rainn.org/online/

Love isn’t love unless it destroys you. Jason learns this early. It isn’t love unless there’s bruises and tears. Love is pain and angry words hurled like daggers right into the weakest spots, the chink in the armor. He used to listen to Pat Benatar sing about love being a battlefield, but he thinks she only got it half right. Love is a war you fight every day and if you’re very, very lucky, it kills you. 

“I’m never going to fall in love,” Jason tells Rosario, one of the girls on the corner who buys him cocoa sometimes in the winter. “It’s the stupidest thing anyone could do.” 

The next night, he meets Batman. 

: : :

Bruce is weird. He’s rich, but he doesn’t care about it. He goes out and gets his ass kicked by criminals every night, comes home beaten and bloody and broken, and goes out the next night all the same, again and again. Alfred calls him a martyr sometimes when they’re fighting and Jason doesn’t know what that means, but he’s pretty sure it means hero.

Like, a _real_ hero. Not a hero like Superman who has all these crazy powers and can lift buildings and shit, that’s easy. Bruce actually gets hurt. He trains like a crazy person. He puts his body and mind through actual torture because he’s so obsessed with keeping Gotham safe.

Jason doesn’t have the heart to tell him it’s never going to happen. That Gotham’s been evil, Gotham’s still evil, and Gotham’s always going to be evil, with or without the Batman. Some things can’t be changed. 

Still, he admires him for trying, for sacrificing so much just to protect his city -- their city. It’s what real heroes do.

: : : 

About a year after Bruce takes him in, Jason understands. 

It’s not about being a hero. It’s not about Gotham. It’s about Bruce. 

It’s about love. 

It’s about dying inside every single day, about emptiness and pain and loneliness. Everyone thinks the Batman is invincible, but there’s a chink in his armor where something went straight through his heart a long time ago. You can’t hurt him, because he’s constantly hurting. 

The pain never goes away. He never forgets. Jason sees it in the way he punches, the way he pushes his body to go harder, farther than before. It reminds Jason of being on the street, the things he would do to take his mind off of the things he’d seen, the things he’d done. Sometimes -- sometimes he’d do those things as a way to take his mind off of everything else. It was fucked, but sometimes that’s the only way he could deal with how hungry and sad he was. 

Sometimes love makes you do stupid shit. Sometimes, Jason wishes it had just killed him and been done with it. 

: : : 

He lets Bruce kiss him in the cave, on a school night. He’d been ordered to stay home that night, so he did, but he sat up for as long as he could waiting for Bruce to get home, worrying and pacing, until finally passing out in the big chair in front of the computer. He woke up when the car finally pulled back into the cave and once Bruce put it in park, Jason ran to him and threw himself against him, wrapping his arms around Bruce and breathing him in. 

He pulled the gauntlets off, pushed the cowl back. He ran his fingers over Bruce’s face, checking for marks and bruises. 

“I should be with you,” he says, half disoriented from sleep and worry. “I should always be with you.” 

And Bruce kisses him. His hand is big, cupping the entire side of Jason’s face when he does it. It’s just a press of lips, but it feels like it lasts forever. Jason’s stomach turns to liquid heat, then feels like it’s going to do flips, like it does before he has to throw up. 

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says immediately after, when Jason steps back. “Jay, I’m -- I didn’t --”

Jason smiles and grabs Bruce’s hand, reassures him that they’re good, everything's good. He’s good. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m just tired.” 

Bruce smiles back and pulls Jason in for a goodnight hug, hands firm and tight against his back, then turns his face and presses another kiss into Jason’s hair. 

Jason goes upstairs and stares at his reflection as he brushes his teeth, walks to his room and shuts off the light, climbs into bed. He stares at the wall for hours and in the morning at breakfast, when Bruce asks him if he slept well, he loses his appetite. 

: : : 

Bruce is a good guy, is the thing. He fights crime. He hates other rich people. He took Jason in when he was starving and had nowhere else to go. He buys him whatever he wants. He let him be a _superhero._

Jason doesn’t love him, but he appreciates him. He respects him. He’s very thankful for everything that Bruce has done for him and...they’re friends. It’s weird, probably, to consider someone Bruce’s age one of his best friends, but Bruce isn’t like other adults. He hates all the same things Jason hates and he likes getting into fights and staying up all night and he treats Jason like an equal, not like some stupid kid like everybody else. 

So, he may not love him, but Jason does like him. And he’s pretty sure Bruce likes him too. He likes that Bruce likes him. He likes that feeling, the feeling of being liked and wanted and needed. He wants to hold onto it for as long as he can. 

So when Bruce kisses him in the cave, or the Batmobile, or on top of roofs, or in some back alley, Jason lets him. Jason kisses him back, because it feels nice. He’s never been kissed before and it’s warm and wet and it’s the kind of thing that means someone likes you. And it’s nice to feel wanted. 

Jason lets him and he doesn’t tell him he thinks it’s weird or that it makes him a little sick to his stomach sometimes, because that would hurt Bruce’s feelings and Bruce might not like him anymore. Plus, sometimes he kisses Bruce back. Sometimes, Jason thinks maybe he _does_ like it and there’s just something wrong with his body for acting like he doesn’t. 

Sometimes he doesn’t know what he thinks. 

: : : 

“ _B-Bruce.”_

Bruce puts his mouth on him and Jason feels like he has snakes in his stomach, squirming and wriggling around. 

“Bruce --” _stop,_ he doesn’t say. 

He doesn’t say _no._

He just says Bruce’s name, over and over, until his body shakes and he spills into his mouth. Bruce does something else after that, but Jason’s sleepy and tired of thinking, so he lets his head fall to the side and closes his eyes. 

When it’s over, he feels wet, cold lips against his jaw. 

“I love you,” Bruce says and Jason dies in every way except the one that counts. 

: : : 

Bruce makes him chicken noodle soup from the can when he’s sick because Jason asks for it. He watches reruns of the Golden Girls with him and even laughs occasionally. He buys him nicer clothes than he ever would’ve been able to own and lets Jason decorate his room however he wants. 

Sometimes they kiss. Sometimes Bruce pulls Jason into his lap and they makeout like the teenagers on tv shows do, slow and lazy, then with more urgency, like something’s going to happen if they stop, like one of them is going to disappear. Bruce likes to touch his face and put his fingers in his hair, like he’s trying to keep hold of him, and Jason reaches out and touches his face back, like they’re anchoring each other. 

Sometimes, they do more than kiss. Jason even starts to like it a little. It’s all new to him, everything they do together. He’s glad that it’s at least with Bruce, someone he trusts. Bruce knows what he’s doing, anyway. He wouldn’t hurt him or anything, not like the other guys who would pay him a few bucks so he could get something to put in his stomach. Still, sometimes Jason gets sleepy and lets himself zone out during the times they’re doing more than kissing, but Bruce doesn’t seem to mind, so it works. 

: : : 

Jason loves him. 

Bruce is inside of him and it hurts. He feels too full and so empty at the same time, feels like being ripped apart, like being gutted. It’s too much for him to get away from this time. It’s Bruce’s hot breath on his neck, the smell of his sweat. It’s ugly and painful and that’s what love is, right? It’s a war you fight every day. 

Jason’s just not lucky enough for it to kill him. 

  



End file.
